A missing child case in Houston has been solved by Texas authorities. The infant who vanished 8 years ago will be reunited with his mother after police arrested the child’s former babysitter for kidnapping him.
Krystle Rochelle Tanner, 26, is being held without bond in a San Augustine jail. The now 8-year-old boy will be reunited with his mother, Auboni Champion-Morin, who hasn’t seen her son since he was 8-months-old.
“I want to hold him in my arms and let him know who I am,” said Champion-Morin, who lives in Houston. “I hope he can feel the same thing I feel for him.” But before the reunion happens, Champion-Morin will have to undergo a DNA test to prove the boy is her son, even though authorities know it’s him.
Police were led to Tanner last Summer after child welfare investigators in San Augustine County received a complaint that a mother was neglecting her two children. But when officials followed up on the complaint, they couldn’t locate the older boy.
Tanner initially told police she was keeping the boy for a woman she had met in a park, but she didn’t know where he was. Sheriff’s deputies had no records for the boy and little information to work with, according to USA Today.
The sheriff’s were unaware of the missing baby case in Houston. That’s because police closed the missing child case in 2006 after they were unable to locate Tanner or the baby, and the case went cold.
Chief Deputy Gary Cunningham of the San Augustine Sheriff’s Department (pictured above) said the case was closed in 2006, after relatives of Tanner told them she vanished with the boy in 2004 and they had not heard from her.
Tanner (pictured left), who was also the boy’s godmother, neglected the child and never enrolled him in school. He went by several names that she called him, including the name “Dirty.”
The search for the boy was made even more difficult because authorities in other jurisdictions were unaware he was missing.
“It was very difficult because we were essentially searching for a ghost,” Cunningham told The Associated Press.
Even though Tanner was located last Summer, CPS officials recently learned that she was suspected in the 2004 kidnapping, which led to Monday’s arrest.
One of Tanner’s relatives led police to the 8-year-old boy, but the relative denied any knowledge of the kidnapping. Police will determine if there will be any more arrests.
Champion-Morin said she did everything she could to find her child, even though the police closed the case.
“I prayed every night that he was safe, loved and he would come home one day,” Champion-Morin said.
This case is reminiscent of a recent one involving a Dallas teenager who was mistakenly deported to Columbia, even though she was a 14-year-old American citizen. Jakadrien Turner, now 15 and pregnant, was returned to Dallas earlier this year after her case received national media attention.
